5 ms·

Like how everyone is using the same social media? Drinking the same shit at starbucks. Living in the same cities with the same stores? Wearing the same clothes.

• anovikov 3y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM
• riidom 3y ago
  Sure about the trending part? In past there was much less options what to consume, do, read, watch.
  • nullstyle 3y ago
    There are more and more eyeballs over time competing in fewer and consolidating media markets. Content trending towards homogeneity is a real thing, especially on the streaming services.
    • WillPostForFood 3y ago
      I don't think this is right, content feels much more fragmented now. There is more content, locked into smaller premium services, catering to niche audiences. If you look at viewership, when there were just three national networks, popular shows had 10x-20x the audience. An example is the MASH finale, which had 106 million viewers. Game of Thrones finale, in comparison, had 19m.
  • anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    Sure, but those options varied between small regions. For instance, while some television programs would be distributed nationally or internationally, others were filmed at the local stations, and stayed local.
  • anlaw 3y ago
    [dead]
  • oilchange 3y ago
    > Sure about the trending part? Yes. I could see and experience it myself. > In past there was much less options what to consume, do, read, watch. We all have the same diverse options. "Same" being the key point here. Sure, now we have avocados, bananas, strawberries, etc to choose from. But so does everyone else around the world. The all have the same options. The options may be superficially diverse, but they are similarly diverse around the world. Monoculture and homogeneity doesn't exclude diversity options, it just means the diversity of options are the same everywhere.
• cainxinth 3y ago
  I work in marketing. My clients routinely point to an industry leader’s marketing and say: “We want ours to look like that.”
  • Zetobal 3y ago
    Brace yourself for the yearly Cannes Lions Archive update.
• medymed 3y ago
  There could be a metric for rated activities/products that penalizes high ratings if given by ‘pro-homogenous’ raters i.e. who tend to be diehard follower-mindset people who avoid anything really novel. I don’t think this kind of metric is useful for most people though. You can go anywhere in the world and for example the highest rated TripAdvisor lunch place is likely to have eggs benedict (with a sprinkle of local spices!), and most people find that a feature not a bug.
• stillbourne 3y ago
  Homogenized cultures come and go. Postwar 1950s monoculture came and went so will everything else.
• tonmoy 3y ago
  Other than using the same social media no other example you gave is accurate in my experience. Is it possible that you are stuck in a bubble of people of similar age, from the same country with similar profession?
• TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Honest, unironic and loud YES from me.
• cratermoon 3y ago
  Drive across country in the American West and you'll find: McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Starbucks, Wal*Mart. Truck stops, ubiquitous on the interstates, always have the same stuff, usually a Subway or similar fast-food chain, food and beverages on the aisles just like any city. Some but not much regional variation, usually manifest by something like the variety of Doritos flavors available. Inside the only way you can tell where you are is to look for the always-present postcard and souvenir racks.
• stuckinhell 3y ago
  That's not really the will of people though, it enforcement from elites and their control of international global corporations, that destroy cultures for profit. Before Coca-Cola entered India, tea and coffee were the predominant beverages. However, Coca-Cola's aggressive marketing strategies aimed at the younger demographic positioned their carbonated drinks as trendy and fashionable to shift cultural norms away from traditional Indian drinks. De Beers, a multinational diamond corporation, is credited with the creation of the diamond engagement ring tradition in Japan. Prior to the 1960s, the concept of diamond engagement rings was virtually unknown in Japanese culture. However, De Beers launched a powerful marketing campaign that successfully associated diamonds with Western ideas of romance and status, thus changing the cultural norm. Global Corporations are trying to achieve economies of scale. So they benefit from global cultural homogenization, you can see that with many Japanese Gaming Companies likes Capcom promising to include western ESG principles in their games. The only real backlash in recent history that's been effective has been the Bud Lite fiasco.
  • XajniN 3y ago
    > The only real backlash in recent history that's been effective has been the Bud Lite fiasco. That is limited to the US, in Europe even Duff is more known.
  • quantified 3y ago
    When you have a concentration of power and influence, it will be applied. Another comment here refers to "speaking the same language". Latin was spread by the Romans, Spanish by the Spanish, English by the English, but the concentration of power and influence in the USA really powered the spread of a particular kind of English. People shop at the same Walmarts because Walmart drove the other retailers out. People shop at Amazon for whatever. Coca-Cola has influenced our view of Christmas with its imagery, and post-WWII influenced the perception of America and its culture overseas.
  • locopati 3y ago
    I agree about the Bud Lite fiasco. It's pretty shameful when a major corporation cannot stand up to bullies and fascists.
• Kiro 3y ago
  For a while? You mean forever.
• marcosdumay 3y ago
  > Drinking the same shit at starbucks. Yeah, that isn't really happening. The era of the US exporting food preferences was short lived, mostly at the 90's. > Living in the same cities with the same stores? And well, stores are dying, so that's off too. Everyone is in a different bubble inside the same social media; clothes haven't actually homogenized any more in centuries (I'm not sure if there's room for it); and yes, the internet runs on English and the shows/movies one is spot on. Overall, 20th and 21th century globalization has been a huge force for enabling local diversity at the expense of global one, but you seem to widely overestimate it.
  • breadwinner 3y ago
    I am not so sure. I had a stopover in Dubai recently. I was able to visit the city. I visited the Dubai mall, and I was struck by how undistinguishable it looked from a typical American mall. Nearly all brands were American. I was in a completely different part of the world, and expecting to experience something completely different, and I was sorely disappointed.
    • orwin 3y ago
      I don't know about Dubai, but in most places with its own history, US 'mainstream' culture have trouble reaching (US have plenty of different culture too, even if they reach a bit sometime (misouri/KC barbecue)). Especially food.
    • marcosdumay 3y ago
      > visited the Dubai mall That one famous all over the world for insisting on having exclusively the same stores you find everywhere so that tourists would feel safe? When you got to the Mc Donald's, did it only have the same kind of food you can find on the US too? If you insist on staying inside the tourist sandbox, you will only see the tourist attractions.
  • oilchange 3y ago
    > Yeah, that isn't really happening. The era of the US exporting food preferences was short lived, mostly at the 90's. I've traveled a bit since the 90s ended and I can say your statement is simply false. The proliferation of mcdonald's, burger king, starbucks, dunkin donuts has grown exponentially since the 90s. These companies' financial statements backs this up. > And well, stores are dying, so that's off too. Local stores are dying and being replaced by multinationals. > clothes haven't actually homogenized any more in centuries (I'm not sure if there's room for it) Here is just an image of an ASEAN meeting ( south east asian leaders meeting ). https://media.philstar.com/images/articles/duts-asean-leaders_2018-04-28_18-22-08.jpg https://media.philstar.com/images/articles/duts-asean-leader... Looks very "globally" homogenized to me. Not local, nor diverse. > Overall, 20th and 21th century globalization has been a huge force for enabling local diversity at the expense of global one Just like the growth of amazon led to the diversity of local bookstores? A pillar of globalization is scale/size and its derivative efficiency. Globalization, by definition, cannot lead to local diversity. It destroys local diversity in the name of scale, size and efficiency.
• chiefalchemist 3y ago
  My "thing" is that what often gets passes off as diversity and inclusion is actually assimilation. I like to use the "seat at the table" metaphor. It's been a rectangular table. As diversity and inclusion join, the table should become oval as it progresses towards round. As for a seat at the table? If there's diversity and inclusion some take a chair, some stand, other might sit on the floor. That is, everyone gets a place at the table, but seat isn't forced upon them. On the other hand, with assimilation nothing really changes. The rectangular table just gets longer and longer, and adds more seats. All in all, assimilation is the means to the ends of monoculture.
  • TeMPOraL 3y ago
    In the complaints about homogenization, people seem to often miss that it's not just marketing and magic US poison. Most of this stuff gets adopted simply because it's better than the local thing it replaced. To riff off your analogy: the table will remain rectangular and will grow in length for a simple reason: round tables suck. They're good as a metaphor, but are inconvenient and a waste of space in reality. As reflected by their relative rarity.
    • chiefalchemist 3y ago
      That's fine. My point is, that's not diversity and inclusion. It's assimilation. To riff on your riff. There the Groucho Marx’s quote: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” While perhaps he meant it differently, we have people/groups lining up to get a seat at a rectangular table with a history of: bigotry, genocide, misogyny, prejudice, war, greed, cronyism, materialistic, etc, etc, etc. The new members are so proud of themselves for getting a seat at that table, conveniently ignoring all the unnecessary death, suffering, injustice, etc deeply notched into that table. That's not diversity. That's not inclusion. That's assimilation. To think otherwise is naive.
• mmaunder 3y ago
  No, you’re not taking into account our connectedness and the velocity of ideas as a result of our connectedness.
• Pxtl 3y ago
  I would argue that globalization has meant that we all live in the same city and use the same sites, but globalization has also caused a Cambrian explosion of content that has created a kind of balkanized cultural space. So every city looks the same but the granularity within it is far higher because people have separated by culture instead of by locale.
• drewcoo 3y ago
  I agree with trends toward homogeneity. Some people are disagreeing because there's "more" choice now because all the differences are non-localized. Walmart and then Amazon squeezed out local anything stores. I think it's five large media conglomerates squeezed out any local broadcast station with actual local content other than weather and sports. Etc. And what we have for diversity is largely non-local and often living inside huge corporate walled gardens - look at all the content I can get on YouTube while they decide it's ok to do that, so better not get a "strike!" This is still an increase in homogeneity. Not to mention a ridiculous consolidation of authoritarian power.